(diaryland) November 27, 2001 - 2:57 p.m.

Finally, I had my piano exam! Now I can write in my diary again.

Everyone who knows me also knows my entire life had been leading up to that point. I was always tinkering away on those bits of dead elephant and tree, trying to sound kind of good.

On Sunday night, the night before, I couldn�t get to sleep. Shit! I thought. I have not practiced enough! And it was true.

I had a rather nasty dream that the electricity got cut off during the night so my alarm clock reset itself. I dreamt I woke up after the time of my exam, then ran around the house and screamed a lot.

Then I actually did wake up, and looked over at my alarm clock and it was flashing. There had been a power cut. I then actually ran around the house and screamed a lot. Luckily it was only 6:10AM, so the rest of the dream didn�t come true.

Then I ran around the house for another reason. I�d lost some music. I found it in my car, though. Because I was so disorganised, I didn�t have time to practice very much before I zoomed to the exam, which was at 11:22.

I was sitting outside an examination room with some small child. I decided to make him and me feel better by talking to him. �Hey,� I said. �What grade are you doing?�

�Grade 1,� he said. �It�s my first exam.�

�Are you nervous?� I asked.

�Oh, yeah,� he said.

�Me too,� I said. That was all. Suddenly the examiner appeared.

The examiner was nice, but I discovered later he had been ruthlessly evil to my piano teacher once. If I�d known that at the time, I would have been more worried or something.

The examiner was all like, �Let�s start with some scales.� I was expecting this. I wasn�t expecting to fuck up big time, though. I killed a scale, and I yelled, �NUTS!� which was the least offensive swear word I could think of at the time. He let me try it again, I think because he was scared. Well, not really. I just like to think so. All in all, my scales were almost, but not quite, abysmal. Yay!

Then I went on to my pieces. I mostly nailed my Bach prelude, even when I went demonic at the end and played way faster than was safe. The fugue was awesome, except for the end which I always bugger up. He loved that I played the fugue off by heart, because they�re apparently hard to remember.

Then came my Tchaikovsky, which I played like a robot. It was OK. No scary mistakes.

Then came evil Mozart. When I played it, you could tell so hardcore that I hated that piece with all my heartmeats. Which wasn�t so good.

Then came my slow, quiet, ultra-easy Debussy piece. I messed up one note and vagued out a bit. I kept hearing other people playing other things in other rooms, and I thought about them instead of myself. While the examiner was asking questions about the pieces, I heard someone playing my Bach fugue. I was all like, �Hey! That kid stole my piece!� The examiner said, �Yeah. Someone just before you played your Debussy and Tchaikovsky too.� I thought, shit. He must be sick of all the pieces in the syllabus. Then I was paranoid they played them better than me.

He asked me when the Baroque period was. I said, �Uh������ 1620 to like, 1750?� He said, �No, it started a bit earlier than that with Monteverdi.�

I said, �Oh. I thought Monteverdi was a Renaissance composer.�

He said, �Well, sort of, but he wrote operas that were the first Baroque music.�

I said, �I really like Monteverdi. He rocks.� I wasn�t sucking up, by the way.

He said, �Oh, really? When was l�Orfeo written, huh?�

I was all like, �1607!�

He said, �Wow! You�re right!�

Suckah.

So we had a large bonding session over Monteverdi. Hopefully I scored heaps of cool points with that.

Then came ear tests. I nailed them hardcore. Then I had to look at some music, then play it on the piano by memory. No problems there. He was happy. I glanced at the report he was writing about me. He had written hardly anything on it! WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!?!?!?!

And then I ran away.

All in all, I fucked up some bits and I didn�t fuck up some bits. I think I fucked up too many bits, but I�m kind of reasonably sure I passed. Thank heavens it�s over, though. That�s all I care about.